I'll Be Home for Christmas
by litvirg
Summary: In response to tumblr prompt: Bellamy's and Octavia's first Christmas after their mom died and Clarke does her best to make it happier.


Clarke pulled her car slowly into the driveway at the Blake's house. It already felt different than every other time she had done it.

About a week before she had gotten a panicked call from Bellamy, begging her to help him with Christmas for Octavia.

_"It's all going to feel so wrong, I don't know what to do. I can't just do nothing-it's just-it's our first Christmas without her, and you've know O the longest, you're her best friend-"_

_"Bell, stop. Of course I'll be there. I'll take care of everything, you just take care of yourself alright?"_

Now, sitting in her car, looking up at the old house (ignoring the "For Sale" sign stuck in the lawn) she wasn't sure how she could ever make good on that promise. This was more than she could take care of. It was more than anyone could take care of. It was something that couldn't be taken care of.

Octavia, her best friend, had to have Christmas without her mom for the first time in her entire life. And that's how it was going to be for the rest of her life.

It wasn't fair. Clarke knew that Bellamy could handle it better than Octavia could—or he could at least act like he could handle it better. He was used to putting himself last, growing up as a brother and a provider, a son but a breadwinner. When he cried, he cried for Octavia. And he almost never cried.

But she had promised, so here she was.

She twisted the key and pulled it out of the ignition. Grabbing her bags, she made her way to the front door and rang the bell.

A harried looking Bellamy answered the door. Despite the bags under his eyes, and his disheveled hair, or the shirt with any number of stains on it and his mismatched socks (Bellamy was meticulous about matching his socks) he looked happy to see her.

"Hey, Clarke," he pulled her into an awkward, but well-meaning hug, with her arms squished in front of her, the bags forcing space between them. "Thanks, again, for coming. This isn't exactly something I'm good at."

Clarke decided she was going to go with the humorous yet evasive tactic first. "Bellamy Blake admitting he's not an expert at something? I never thought I'd see the day." She flashed him a small smile.

He knew what she was doing. And she knew that he knew what she was doing, but he played along, pushing her toward the kitchen, telling her not to get used to it.

"Where's Octavia?" she asked, as she started emptying out her bags of food on the counter.

Bellamy plucked a bag from her hand and started helping her. "Not up yet. Mom was always the one to wake her up for the cinnamon roll breakfast on Christmas." He paused, eyebrows scrunched together. "I thought it would be better if I just let her sleep."

Clarke heard what he didn't want to have to say. _Thought it would be better if he didn't try to act like everything was normal. _

"Good call," Clarke nodded. She started getting her own supplies for breakfast in order in silence while Bellamy grabbed his book from off the counter and leaned forward on his elbows, opening up to his page.

"So," Clarke clapped her hands together. "Regular or chocolate chip pancakes."

Bellamy smiled gratefully up at her. "Oh, chocolate chip definitely. It is Christmas after all."

It was the smell of the pancakes cooking that woke Octavia in the end.

"Hey, Bell, are you making pancakes?" she yawned, rubbing at her eyes as she entered the kitchen. She perked up as soon as she saw who was in front of the stove. "Clarkey!" she wrapped her arms around Clarke tightly and gave her a big squeeze, not letting go for a long time, long enough that the pancake Clarke had been working on started to burn and Clarke had to shove her away laughing.

"You're going to ruin the whole batch, O!" she joked.

Octavia slid onto a stool next to Bellamy. "I didn't know you were coming today."

Clarke threw out the burned pancake and started on another. "Bellamy didn't tell you?" she asked, surprised.

"Big brother were you holding out on me?"

"Maybe I just thought it would be a nice surprise for you, O," he said sheepishly.

Octavia smiled and planted a kiss on his cheek. "Well it was," she said. "Merry Christmas, Bell!"

When he called her and asked her to come, her offered to host her family too, so that she wouldn't have to miss out on Christmas with them, but Clarke had turned him down, saying that it would probably overwhelm Octavia, or make it seem like they brought a bunch of people over to try and make her forget that her mom wasn't there. When it was just Clarke they could acknowledge the absence, not hide it away, but not let it stop them from having a nice Christmas together.

What she didn't tell him was that he and Octavia had felt more like family than anyone else in her life, and if she had to spend the holidays with family, she'd rather it be them.

Since it was just the three of them, the day was a pretty low key affair. They ate Clarke's pancakes, and then exchanged gifts in the morning. (Well, mid-morning. More like early afternoon, but what did it matter? They had nowhere else to be.)

Clarke gave Octavia a bottle of bubble bath and a copy of Le Petit Prince—all in French, because it was the most recent language Octavia had decided to learn.

She gave Bellamy a pair of mismatched fuzzy socks and a book on Roman history she had seen him eyeing the last time the three of them were in town.

Octavia had given both her and Bellamy a set of hats and gloves, but a golden necklace with an arrow charm for Clarke and a nice new watch for Bellamy.

Bellamy handed over an envelope to Octavia, which turned out to be two tickets to a music festival in the city a few weeks after the new year. "I figured you and Lincoln could go," he mumbled as she threw her arms around his neck chanting "thank you than you thank you!" excitedly in his ear.

Clarke smiled at that. It was nice to see Bellamy letting go of his whole Scary Big Brother shtick.

He also pushed a wrapped box over to Clarke, a slight blush on his face as she started to unwrap it. Inside wasa framed set of four vintage hand painted postcards.

"You said you didn't have a lot of art around your new apartment so I thought…" he trailed off blushing.

Clarke smiled and rested her hand on his arm. "Thank you, Bell. It's perfect."

After they opened the presents, Octavia decided she wanted to test out the bubble bath Clarke gave her, so she grabbed the bottle and ran upstairs, giving them each a kiss on the cheek before leaving.

"I think she just wants an excuse to have something to do besides sit around and wait for this to feel normal," Bellamy said, standing up. He started cleaning up the scraps of wrapping paper and colored tissue that littered the floor.

Clarke stood and stilled his arm. "Sit down and relax for a minute," she said. "I got this."

She cleaned in silence as he sat down on the couch with his new book and started to read. (Though Clarke was pretty sure he didn't actually get much reading done, as he would look up over the spine of the book every few seconds, and he never actually turned the page).

"You know," she said. "It's okay if it doesn't feel normal. You shouldn't feel bad about it. Everything is bound to feel at least a little bit off for a while."

He didn't say anything, but she knew he was grateful. He tried for a smile, and it was enough for Clarke to see a few minute later that he was able to focus some energy on actually reading a few pages of the book.

Most of the afternoon was spent in much of the same way. Bellamy read his book, and when Clarke was finished cleaning everything up, she pulled her sketchbook out from her bag and sat on the couch, on the other side of Bellamy and spent a few hours drawing. When she had finished with her bubble bath, Octavia had gone to the back yard to call Lincoln, and it all seemed fine. Definitely not like how she was used to feeling Christmas in the Blake's house, but fine.

That is, until she walked past the window overlooking the yard from the kitchen.

Octavia had hung up the phone and had her head in her hands, shoulders shaking.

"Bell," she called into the living room where he still sat reading.

"Yeah?"

"I'm gonna go check on Octavia. Want to pick out a movie for us all to watch?" She didn't wait for him to answer—she knew he would—she just slid out the back door and sat next to Octavia on the swing put an arm around her shoulders.

"I just want—to stop—missing her," she gasped between sobs.

Clarke rubbed slow circles onto her back.

"I know," she said. "I miss her, too."

Octavia leaned into Clarke, and they sat there for what felt like hours, but was only a few minutes, before Clarke broke the comforting silence.

"You know, I have all this food for a big dinner, but that doesn't really feel right does it?" She felt Octavia shake her head. "Maybe we should just order some Chinese food tonight."

Octavia nodded and sat up, wiping under her eyes, pushing away any of the remaining tears before she stood up. Clarke moved to go back into the kitchen when Octavia called out from behind her.

"Hey Clarke?" she said. "Thanks. I mean not just for this. But thanks."

Clarke smiled. "Love you, O."

"Love you, Clarkey."

The rest of the night, they sat in front of the TV, eating Chinese food, watching Harry Potter.

"If ABC Family can call it a Christmas movie, who am I to argue?" Bellamy had said when Clarke asked whether or not it really counted as a holiday movie.

They wound up watching the first three, before Octavia stood up and gave them each a hug.

"I think I'm going to call it a night early," she said, stretching. She leaned down giving Clarke a squeeze. "Thanks for coming over, Clarkey." Then she moved over to Bellamy. "Thanks for everything, big brother."

Then she bounded up the stairs giving one last "Merry Christmas!" once she reached the top.

Clarke looked over at Bellamy sitting next to her. She shifted to get up. "I can get started cleaning all that up—" she started but Bellamy tugged her arm back before she had even fully stood up.

"Don't worry about it, I can get it later," he said. "For now, can you just—I don't know how to say this without sounding like a moron." He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. "Can you just, sit here. With me? For a bit?"

Clarke smiled and shifted closer, so that she was leaning into his chest. She grabbed the hand that had tugged her back down and started running her own hand over it. "Whatever you need, Bell. You know that."

They sat like that for a while.

"It's different for O, you know?" he said breaking the silence. "She got to really be her kid, I never got that."

Clarke knew that. Aurora Blake was a good woman, but she made a lot of bad choices in her life. She loved her kid, but she couldn't always take care of them. And with their dad gone, it just put more responsibility on Bellamy to take care of all three of them.

"It's not that I'm not sad, it's just…I don't know how to explain it."

"It's just another thing where you're worrying about Octavia more than yourself. It doesn't leave room to be properly sad," Clarke supplied.

She felt him take a deep breath. "Yeah," he said.

Clarke turned her neck so she was facing him, and he was looking down at her. "You can be sad now, Bell." She reached up a hand and carded her fingers through the strand of hairs at his forehead. He closed his eyes. "It's okay," she said. "You can be sad."

He opened his eyes and looked right at her. "I don't want to be sad, Clarke. Not today. Not right now."

His breath was warm running over her face and she felt her neck heat up. She started to take her hand away but he caught it, and held it against his cheek before pressing his lips to her palm.

She moved her other hand to his neck and started pressing kisses to his collarbone. His head dropped back onto the arm of the couch and she worked her lips up his neck, right under his jaw. She scooted herself up until their bodies were flush against each other and she pressed on last kiss to his neck before pulling away and looking him in the eye.

"Not sad?" she asked.

He wrapped his hands around her back, hands sliding under her shirt, pulling her closer and fit his mouth to hers.

"Not sad," he said when he pulled away.


End file.
